I took the big flashlight out with me to the creek behind the playground, and I walked back along a little bitty spit of land into the creek, and I stood there and a peeper did in fact call out. And as it was a full two feet away from my shoes it took me several peeps and about 60 seconds to find it, and there the Spring Peeper was. Lord have mercy they do puff up! I mean, you see it on TV, and you say, Amphibians Sure Are Amazing, Puffing Up Real Big And All. And then you see it really puff up, the whole body getting in on it, from the rim of the mouth (frogs ain't got lips, which I do remember from Grover Jones' class) down across all of the torso and even into the abdomen, and you say, OKAY. This frog is essentially a Peep-Delivery Device. And the Spring Peeper peep! ELECTRIC!

So I found an old polystyrene cup and I caught the frog on the fourth try, thank you cold-blooded sluggishness in April water, and water was dripping out the crack in the cup and I ran it up to the apartment, and was Joe still awake? Of course he was.

And so Joe came out and then after I retrieved the frog from near the microwave and didn't let him slide down hardly near the stove at all and put him in a drinking glass (shout-outs to Carol, please, for agreeing that this was the appropriate vessel, and that a dishwasher is like an autoclave for the consumer market), Joe came and looked at him. And he asked how I had found him, and used a magnifying glass to make him bigger, and we rushed him back to the swamp after there were hugs and kisses and pictures all around, except for the frog, who was pretty much out of his cognitive depth, as it were.

I would live forever if i could always be so lucky as to see a different kind of frog I had never seen before when I took out the trash. I would, really. And to have someone to show it to, to have two someones to show the frog and to be grateful, well. And now to show the same frog to you? What a grand gift.

We're in an apartment where you can hear the spring peeper frogs singing from sunset until dawn. When I walked the trash out tonight, I took a flashlight with the intention of seeing a spring peeper. Nope. Must be tiny little things. The word "Lovecraftian" springs to mind. Which tells you more about me than you probably want to know.

While I was walking I also heard an American Toad, and a Northern Leopard Frog. How could I possibly know these things? In the case of the peeper and the toad, because I read Night Sounds so &^^%&^ many times that I could recite it. (Thanking you, Alex.) It really is a superior book of its kind. Joe once recognized a Great Horned Owl, I think in part because of the book, and he recognized the Spring Peepers immediately as well. As for the Leopard Frog, I heard it at allaboutfrogs.org. Sounds kind of like what might happen if you made a piece of pig iron mad.

You know what? Life is too short not to stop and listen to the amphibians.

The definition of a fan, it has occurred to me, is one who enjoys the work of an artist even when he or she might not enjoy the same work if it were by different artist.

I am such a fan of Moby. I am ardent. I am late to Moby, all right? I came with Play, like most of us fans. I saw Stevie Ray Vaughn open for Huey Lewis (and the News) and left before the popster took the stage; I liked Run-DMC before they met Aerosmith; I came to the Coen brothers (and the Ramayana Monkey Chant) with Blood Simple. But on Moby I am late, late, late, and the congnoscenti may sneer if they wish.

But I like Hotel. It's a good record; it has heart if not a lot of soul. Playwas better; 18was better. But because I care for Moby, I care for Hotel. Good hits, bright tracks, nice work.

The show that Moby put on at the Avalon was fancandy of the first order. The music was a plunge, a repeated plunge, into the cool of solid rock and roll with real spirit and steel behind it. Like solo virtuosos Ray Charles and Louis Armstrong, the miracle of Moby is the organism he brings to the stage, a five-piece band that was tight and sharp and on time and on top. It was a cluster-punch of sound, a wall of creativity and layered rehearsed smashing music that made the caved world suddenly light up with ten thousand luminous loud bulbs. It was like being in downtown Vegas when the light show starts overhead, an impossible and disarming spectacle that seems too glib to be good.

But of course it was good, really good. The music was deeply discernible, and imbued with immediacy it was more accessible than on a CD, too, brilliant and chunky and gruesome and oh, yeah, you could dance to it, even if you had a sprained foot as I did. It was genuine; he seemed genuine, kind in his decision to hail the geeks in the audience and establish kinship with them (us) even as he demonstrated unusual talent, showmanship and grit. The singer he used had control and skill and a sense of partnership to the music. He exploited her rich tones with courage and in unpredictable fashion -- they weren't samples but excellent central cores around which he arrayed electronica. His lead guitarist brought the searing guitar Moby underplays on his records to reality, and the keyboards and synth were an organ to the real instruments' choir. (A sour spot was the outfit that keyboardist assumed: She was tall and lithe, and I suppose it was her choice, but the short-shorts and skimpy remainder looked a little like an Outfit Formerly Worn By Someone Providing Percussion to Prince).

It was too loud, of course, and I forgot my earplugs. Most of the people there were kids, or at least kids to me (and Moby?), but it was a divine ruckus all the same. I never wished the whirlpool would end.

A logistical snafu today left me without a car and Carol at work when Joe needed to be collected at preschool. I started walking, and got there -- it's about 1-1/2 miles, says the Internet mapping thing I'm using -- about 25 minutes later. We figured Carol would pick me up, but she got caught up, and Joe was looking forward to seeing some things I had seen on the way and told him about, so he and I just walked, even when she freed up and could have come to get us.

We were walking along a stone wall, and he was running his hand along it, when he stopped and told me to touch some moss. "This is Jivey Toad skin," he said. "See how soft it is?"

I allowed as it was, and we walked farther. And he started to explain about Jivey Toad lifecycles.

"They spend most of their day underground," he said. "They eat acorns, like this one, but they wouldn't eat this one, because it's split, see? And it has so much venom in it that if they tried to eat it they would explode."

And we kept walking, and every now and then he would explain something else about Jivey Toads. And we would walk a little more.

And then, just when I thought I had heard all I would hear about imaginary amphibians, he said, "Wait, Dad, wait! I think I saw a Burmese mountain frog back there!"

Scott McCloudProbably the best-known thinker about comic strips/books/graphic novels/sequential art working right now. Controversial among comic fans but unequivocally an influential and original thinker.